Story #4: Brenda Pesante

For over 45 years, Brenda Pesante has devoted herself tirelessly to the JEP family. She’s JEP’s most veteran staff member, (and has worked under all four JEP Executive Directors!), starting work with the organization as a secretary in 1975. As our current Director of Community Partnerships, Pesante helps to place hundreds of students each semester in various locations in the Los Angeles community – from schools to service organizations, she makes sure that our community outreach is seamless and impactful. During her time with JEP, she has won multiple awards for her service, including the Staff Assembly Award in 2020. Her nomination for this was accompanied by 31 individual letters of recommendation from colleagues, students, supervisors, community partners, and alumni.

The following ‘50 for 50’ story is a pared-down version of this interview, published in August 2020, and conducted by Kathrin Altmann.

“[I’ve] learned so much from each and every one of [the directors],” Pesante says. “I have seen our program grow over the years in every aspect from adding new programs (Readers Plus, Young Scientist Program, Trojan Health Volunteers, Pre-Law Project, and many more), upgrading and adding more equipment (we started with one computer with the amber screen) and adding more partnering schools and agencies.”

When asked about her favorite JEP memory, Pesante had a hard time narrowing it down to just one… which makes sense, after 45 years of service!

“One of my favorite memories was the remodeling of the JEP house. We needed more office space (since we were growing so fast).”

Lastly, Pesante says that JEP taught her “to be patient, to always be willing and open to learn, and be grateful,” because “there’s just a lot to be grateful for… You’ll never find a place like JEP.”